They watched him with an ever changing mood and played a sort of game, trying to guess who and what he was: Hero, or Villain? Mustache, or bow tie? He simply ate a light lunch of paté and then a tart and a new bottle of wine for each that he barely touched. By turns, Pat found him a charming gentleman and Patty saw him as a ruthless war profeteer, the type who sold ammo to the South Africans during Apartheid and he’d retort, “Well that’s simply business, dear. Repressing people takes a lot of ammo. Supply and demand.”
And she’d say, “I demand a level of morality.”
And He would concede her point and then she would say, “But he has such gentle eyes. Maybe he only makes chocolates?”
“Maybe he sells shoddy formula to Africans causing malnutrition when the mothers ought to just breast feed anyway? Maybe that’s what he does after the chocolates?”
“Maybe the mothers are too hungry to lactate,” she’d say. “The formula is the only chance those babies have…. But then why not feed the mothers with cheese or something?”
And he’d say, “But I do love his suit and look at those shoes and what’s that wine he’s drinking? Is it really Château d’Yquem? Oh but he’s having a plum tart… what a match. He has exquisite taste.”
“Taste for blood,” she’d say. “Like the Count of Dracula.”
And on and on it went. The old man was a neutral cypher but their lunch revolved around his inscrutability. They couldn’t read him at all, so all they did was try to read him and his very neutrality charged the atmosphere with conflict.
Highway image is from Double You at The Library in a weird fluke it seems like the urban mirror to my mountain Ring of Fire.
The autumnal video is from 2002, when NYC was more or less still terror town USA and ghosts were at every turn. I was being haunted by the ghost of my father who would show up in the form of Falcons from time to time (even at the windows of Manhattan high rises) to either scare or comfort me… never could tell which, but it was ominous and bizarre and the better half started calling hm Falconey, like I guess an Italian, or a freak show, or something and this was the one time I got him on tape. I Finally found it in the Willoughby acrhive and I’d been looking for it since the Alice in Wonderland Vision:
https://www.futureofthebook.org/itinplace/wp-content/archives/2006/11/map_key_stone_whale.html
The animated gif is the first five pages (the front matter) from two copies of the Penguin Moby Dick. Two copies so that you can get the front and verso. The books were given me by Ben Vershbow from The Institute and I’ve been procrastinating starting the animation project, but then yesterday Jason Ho (aka Eat A Bug) sent me a note: “Would you be interested in doing an animation about the whole idea of being “Half”…except you can only use 10 pictures…10 for J, the 10th letter in the alphabet, and the first letter of my name. The animation wouldn’t have to be 10 frames long, but only 10 pictures/paintings can be used to sketch an idea of what “Half” means to Alex Itin.”
I was going to use the heads from Battleship Potemkin, when I reealized it was time to hop on the Pequod instead. So I like to think of this as the opening logo of a movie… I don’t know, let’s say: Janus Pictures.
